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I survived last week. Barely. There was the “Exorcist”-like moment I experienced in downtown Portland on Thursday evening that you probably don’t want to hear about. I believe I had the worst case of norovirus in town. I knew deep within the pit of my tummy that I was about to be violently ill and nowhere to do it gracefully. I can’t recall feeling such panic in my life!! My complete and unending thanks to the guy at the hotel (nice hotel) lobby desk who quickly threw me the key to the restroom - he apparently can recognize a potentially disasterous scenario when he sees one. I’m not certain what he would’ve done had he decided to be stuffy and tell me it was only for paying guests. I DO know he would definately been very, very sorry.
I never made it to the Friday afternoon knit circle at LaFavorites, either. My apologies to Vera, whom I’d hoped to meet.
Before that horrible event, I had managed a quick trip into Knit-Purl on SW Alder. Cute, cute knit shop! I picked up another Barbara Walker Treasury that I was missing, and a neat lace book by Margaret Stove. I think I’m really going to like Margaret Stove’s book since I dabble in lace knitting. I like playing with the lace stitches and want to break them down a bit so I can understand the mechanics of lace knitting a bit better.
Our next two colorways of Pygora yarn have been created and skeins dyed! Look for them within the next week on our website!!
Terry
On Saturday, January 27, Terry and I once again hauled ourselves up the I-5 freeway. It seems we’re always schlepping fibers and yarns up and down I-5 to yet another fiber event. This time, although it was more of a social event for us, we headed to Tacoma to the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat ( http://www.madronafiberarts.com/ ). Our intention was to spend some time shopping at the marketplace and deliver some yarn to a couple of friends, and then go have a nice lunch someplace.
Neither of us had been to this event before so we really didn’t know where we were going. We usually do very well in finding our way around but, for some reason, Tacoma has always been more difficult.. We’re thinking it really has nothing to do with us, rather it has to do with the quality of the maps/directions that are available on the Internet. We went to the Northwest Regional Spinners Association Conference last June and we had the same problem!?! The maps and directions always call for a named exit that just doesn’t seem to correspond with our documents.
Terry was driving and I was the co-pilot and navigator. We managed to take exit 133 off of I-5 just as directed, but that was the last time that anything went as planned and it put us onto I-705. Soon an exit appeared that MIGHT be the one that was called for on the map. Rather than barrel past it and find out later that we should have taken it, we took the opportunity to dive off of I-705. This exit dumped us right into the middle of downtown Tacoma. Downtown Tacoma is built on the side of a rather steep hill. We were looking for BROADWAY but somehow we ended up too far south of Broadway. Yep, here we were – a couple of hick goat farmers in the big city!
Terry: “Well, what does the map say?”
Susan: “We’re looking for Broadway and if that’s Market St, we’re too far south.”
Terry: “Well, what does the map say?” (I think her teeth were slightly clenched at this point).
Susan: “We need to turn around and go the other direction.” (I think I actually heard her teeth gnashing a bit at this point.)
Terry turned down a VERY narrow street that had dumpy houses on it. I’m thinking, “How could there be houses like this in downtown?” and, of course, this thinking did nothing to improve our situation. In fact, Terry probably wondered why I wasn’t responding quickly enough to her inquiries on where she should drive next. We pulled into a narrow driveway, backed up and headed back out to the main street.
Terry (who was beginning to sound like a broken record): “Well, WHAT DOES THE MAP SAY?” (Her teeth were REALLY clenched tight now!)
What I was beginning to hear from her was, “You stupid cow, can’t you read a map?”
Susan: “That’s the trouble with maps, they DON”T SAY ANYTHING! This MAP of YOURS doesn’t correspond to anything we’re seeing!!”
Finally, off in the distance, about three blocks away, Terry noticed a tall building that had the hotel emblem on the top floor. So at least now we had a visual to hone in on. We finally found the hotel parking lot, which was unattended, requiring us to read all their signage before we entered. In our confusion, we ended up driving the wrong way through the lot but quickly found a parking spot to slip into before we encountered another vehicle.
Now, mind you, we really weren’t mad at each other and we had a couple of good belly laughs in the parking lot as we walked to the hotel entrance, wondering why we always have so much trouble with Tacoma. Both Terry and I are a bit “bossy” which probably stems from the types of jobs we have. We both have rather stressful positions (Terry more so than myself) and we have fairly high levels of responsibility. This tends to make us both think we need to “take charge” and sometimes we both suffer from the “I can do this better…” syndrome. Believe it or not, we both recognize that sometimes we can be impatient and, although we’re not always successful, we strive to “relax and let go”. It’s not always easy but we value our friendship and know that we both can’t be right 100% of the time! The reality is that a person can’t drive AND read a map at the same time. But, at the same time, it’s difficult to read a map while whizzing through traffic and trying to catch the names on street signs. But we made it and all was well.
We entered the hotel and found that the marketplace was on the fourth floor. We got onto an elevator and headed up and found it with no problems. After a short period of shopping, we decided it was time to attempt to make the connections with a couple of friends who were taking classes. As the noon break began, we headed back to the elevators to descend to the lower level where the classes were being held.
Elevators are not on my list of favorite things. I would much rather take the stairs but I have a bum knee that makes going down the stairs rather slow. We got on elevator number 3. Someone should have posted a sign that the elevator wasn’t working properly. The little arrow on the outside of the shaft indicated that elevator #3 was going “down”. We got on and pushed the button for the lower level. The elevator went up! Thinking that as usual we might not have been paying attention when we got on board, we simply figured we’d ride it up a floor or two and simply wait for it to head back down. Hah! That dang elevator went all the way up to the 19th floor, opened its doors, closed them again and headed back down. Since we were now on our way back down, we pressed the button for the lobby. But the little light behind the button wouldn’t stay on to indicate that we had selected it. This should have been a sign to us but we were too busy gabbing to pay much attention. We stopped on the sixth floor and picked up other fiber folks who also wanted to head to the lobby. But despite the fact that we kept leaning on the “lobby” button, the elevator once again started to head up. Back up to the top floor we went. By then I was getting a bit queasy and was worried that we might be on that elevator from hell. I told Terry that as soon as the elevator reach the sixth floor or lower, I was getting off and would walk down!!!
We met up with our friends, handed off the samples of our new yarn, and left for home. On the way we had a nice lunch and hit a few antique stores in a small town off of I-5. All in all we had a nice day despite our minor traffic woes.
Back at the farm the chores continue. The weather has been glorious for two weeks. Bright sunny days with no rain. Although the weather had been extremely cold at night, it was necessary to shear a few goats. I carefully removed the best fleece from their barrels but left them a ridgeline, their chest fleece and the fuzzies on their backsides. This way they still had enough fleece left to keep them warm but anyone who sees them will think I don’t know how to shear! Talk about bad hair days! Poor little things. They do look silly, but when the weather warms I’ll clip off their remaining fiber and make them look pretty again.
I got real brave today….it admittedly was an act of desparation. I work in a very “red-neck” environment: I’m the only woman supervisor in large paper mill. Not terribly glamorous - but it pays the bills and was fun until all the downsizing that has occured….but I digress! We strive for an area “team” concept - which includes eating lunch together daily. The guys typically talk about sports or other topics that I either have no interest in - or anything I could comment on. Some crews are worse than others - today the “good old boy” crew was in. The lunch topics were about kids sports and strategies - so I quietly got up, went into my office and grabbed my knitting bag. I bring that bag in to work daily and NEVER pull my knitting out. Guess I’m scared or worried that - heaven forbid - I am seen doing something as trivial as knitting. I was really tempted to sit in my office, hide out and knit. That would be viewed as being slightly anti-social…..
I was nervous, but stepped back into the bosses office where our “roundtable” is and sat down with my knitting. Now my boss and my other two workmates know I have “weird hobbies” : spinning, weaving, dyeing, etc - and so there I sat - my knitting boldy before me. There was a big pause. Maybe nobody knew what to say. Then my boss started. “Is that knitting?”. Yes, I replied. “My daughter knits hats on this ring thingie”. To hear the term “ring thingie” from my boss was very humerous. Then I heard about so-and-so’s grandmother who knit beautiful items…..I was very suprised. Hmmm…as much as I hate to admit it - maybe they’re not all bad…..
And then - the other big thing!!! OUR YARN IS BACK FROM THE MILL!! We’ve decided on four colors to start with and I’ve got 5 skeins of the first color: Pinot Noir, dyed and ready to go!! This is a 70% Pygora/30% Merino, 2 ply, fingering yarn. Nobody that we know of sells a Pygora/Merino blend yarn that is hand-dyed. We are very proud!! Woo-hoo!! Our yarn will be for sale on our webpage: http://www.rainbowyarnsnw.com
It’s dear hubby’s turn for a beach trip - so off we go this weekend to the beach. Next weekend I will have to face the music (and the dirty barn) and GET TO WORK!!
Terry